In Defence of my Gym-bros: An Open Letter To Ryan Tubridy

Tubbers, a chara

I am writing to you regarding your recent run-ins with young men of my generation. I understand that their inherent swagger, rugged charm and overall chad-like demeanor has left you somewhat disturbed, and with many questions. My aim with this letter, should you receive it, is to help alleviate some of your confusion. A lofty aim, to be sure!

Personally, I find your state of shock completely understandable. Sure, if I lived in a leafy, well-off suburb, whiter than the driven snow, whilst being paid a shade under €500k by state media, I too, no doubt, would have very few interactions with such unwashed creatures you encountered! The common man is a mysterious beast, and those of a younger, less prosperous generation no less! How could you be expected to understand, being a man of a higher social class?

However, I have good news for you, your royal Tubridiness. I, a man of this new, gym-bro generation will gladly take my time to answer your many questions. In return, I ask of you nothing, but your time. This isn’t much, considering I am an Irish tax payer. I am paying for your time already, after all!

Firstly, what are these dastardly creatures?! So unkempt, so uncouth! And yet, so manly! Who are these men who would so brazenly label you a homosexual bundle of sticks on the leafy streets of fair dublin?

To answer such a question, I must first paint you a picture.

No Island for Young Men

First, let us remember 2011. I understand this was a pretty good year for you, financially speaking. Sadly, for others, it was a little less so.

The country had just been bailed out, you see. The technical details are a little tedious for my purposes. Suffice to say that the banks had been playing a little fast and loose with our money, and when it was finally time to pay the piper, the Irish people had to foot the bill. 

This meant that a lot of people my age didn’t have a lot growing up, and that even those of us who did often had to deal with underfunded government institutions, more bureaucratic than functional. Hospitals with waiting lists as slow as your average Love Island watcher, and schools so stingy as to not put the heating on in the depths of winter. 

Meanwhile, the government was stabilizing the banks and their bankers with loans from the Troika, loans that I understand will be left for my generation to pay off, something we will have hopefully achieved by 2045.

Those of us who grew up during this time I feel are a little different to those who came before. We’re a little more cynical. Nihilistic even. Watching your present wealth be swindled off, only for you to be told you’ll be paying for the dalliance of your swindlers for decades to come has an impact on the psyche of a child, I can assure you! We may be young, but I believe that the Irishman has a sixth sense for this sort of thing, so that he knows when he’s being screwed, even as a child! Of this I am fairly sure!

However, my generation did have within them a degree of hope. While our childhoods were marred by a financial crisis, our adult lives might be a bit brighter. We’ll be able to fix the shitty hospitals! Improve the shitty school heating! Have jobs! Sure, there’s another massive housing crisis brewing, and our politicians seemed as slippery and spineless as ever, but no time period is ever perfect, as you no doubt understand!

Then Covid happened.

A year later, a year that my generation  didn’t get to live, and it appears we are back to square one. Our lockdown, which came too late because closing borders is apparently against our European values, has left us with more debt per head than anyone else in Europe. And guess who is going to be saddled with that debt for the rest of our lives (unless we emigrate, of course. That age old friend of the Irish.)? Looks like we won’t be paying the bailout off by 2045 after all. Hope Frau Merkel doesn’t mind if we’re a few years late!!!

But at least our Nation has been grateful to my generation! They have applauded this generation of young men, forced to take Ireland’s hardship onto their own shoulders, and hold up themselves Ireland’s petty excuse for a state. We have been treated like the heroes of the realm! Like real Fenians!

Oh wait.

As a child, you’re taught that Ireland is an independent country. That we kicked out all the Anglos back in 1916, and those weirdos in the North will trundle home any day now. That Ireland, after the best of a millenia under the fist of na gall are free. Finally! Free!

What a load of horseshit!

I can tell you now that Ireland is less independent than ever, and that there is no better evidence of this than how the elite of this island have treated my generation. They’ve accused us of all these bizarre things dreamt up in some far away Anglo university. We’re racists, we’re sexists, we’re filled with toxic masculinity. We’re basically, according to your lot (you’re as elite as they come in Ireland, let’s face it!), little demoníns running about the gaff in human skin!

Meanwhile, everyone else seems to be treated like feckin’ royalty. The older generations always get the little nod from the government, the state pension always going up, never down. Women are the coming saviours of the Irish race, about to turn history into herstory, while our refugees and migrants are so great that they’ll soon get free houses! How about that?

Meanwhile, what do we get? Us young men keeping the shop running? Nothing but abuse. Absolutely nothing but abuse.

So what do we do?

We Lift.

Right Wing Gains Squads:

Your Ryanness, while I do admit that the men of my generation, myself included, are rough around the edges, I must tell you that, despite our many flaws, we have mastered the art of good living. Truly, sir, you have not experienced pleasure in this world until you have gotten up at Six AM, downed a cup of boiling hot coffee, before proceeding to pump some serious iron while listening to the finest selection of racist podcasts. 

Working out is god’s gift to man, most of all men of my time. All this rage, all this anxiety, a good workout burns away as you sweat and toil under the barbell, turning to energy and fulfillment as it goes. Such an experience, while plenty enjoyable on its own, is only heightened when you’re with the lads, a gang of young men with like-mind and like-attitude. Through the toil and sweat of the workout, a brotherhood can be formed, and minds collectively sharpened in ways that sometimes go beyond belief.

Such a communal experience, I can only imagine, could ever be topped by following such a gathering with a traditional Táin Bó, the greatest of our ancestral games, but sadly our pesky nanny-state frowns upon such things nowadays. Hell, the Greens are working on getting rid of all the Bó-s. Hard to have a good cattle raid without any cattle!

Regardless, worshipping at the Temple of Iron, either communally or as a sole parishioner, gives men of my time much needed respite from the scornful gaze of modern Ireland. With the Catholic church dying, and traditional masculinity socially dead and buried, the temple provides her faithful with both unparalleled physical and psychological strength, allowing us to escape an island of foreign becoming, and instead let us live as we are, as Irishmen.

An unintended, though very welcome side effect of this, of course, is that quite a number of us are well built, which can make us rather intimidating to deal with in person. I humbly ask you for your forgiveness regarding this. I understand it must be rather difficult for those of frailer body and mind.

So, that is your first question answered. Our commonly chad-like physique is a consequence of our hostile environment, you see. Gains give us solace. Give us strength. Much like power and status gives you strength, sir, though our respective levels of powers are leagues apart. A platform will beat a dumbbell any day.

Antisocial behaviour, and other forms of discourse:

This brings us to your second area of confusion: why are young men in their twenties so antisocial? Why do we act in such boorish, unrefined ways, hollering and whooping at unsuspecting National broadcasters in the street?

Well, again, you must forgive us for this, as our environment hasn’t exactly allowed us to participate in discourse in ways more oftenly considered refined.

Did you go a bit mad over lockdown? I know I did. Being locked up in your own home all day, with nothing but the media and your own thoughts. Of course, there were plenty of opportunities to self medicate. Working out, writing, reading the works of great men, trolling people on twitter. There are plenty of ways to kill time in our modern world

This only gets you so far however. Ultimately, despite all the distraction, you’re still stuck in a box, unable to do anything of real import. Unable to go out. Unable to interact with the real world.

Imagine if your entire childhood was like that.

We don’t have to imagine, of course. Ours was. In a world filled with anti-bullying codes and parents terrified of kidnappings, living as a child in 21st century Ireland is a bit like living in North Korea. Line up here, repeat this ideologically charged slogan, enjoy designated 20 minutes of play, consume approved media.

Most importantly of all however: do not dare hurt others.

Such an existence has traumatized us a bit. Politely disagreeing with someone else in a way that offends them to those my age is, at least subconsciously, an inherent contradiction. Speech now is violence. Sure, even you were assaulted in South Dublin by words, according to our omnibenevolent media!

Well, when you grow up believing that words are violence, then you find quite quickly that violence, for a lot of us in later life, becomes a valid form of discourse. Both have the ability to harm another, so what’s the difference?

I, of course, have thankfully escaped this mindset, as have those who run this fine publication. Violence as discourse is more the domain of Antifa and the like, those college dweebs who try to harass and harm us. However, for those men of my generation who are less fortunate than I, they are never given the chance to escape this paradigm. I wager that those young, awfully beefy young men you encountered were some of my less fortunate bretherhen. Perhaps, had they been allowed a better environment to grow up in, they would have chosen to engage in a form of discourse more to our liking.

That being said, you lot do make it hard to have a civil conversation

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Your Tubbership, I admire and applaud you vocalizing support for open, frank discourse in regards to vaccines, lockdowns, and other taboo subjects. Honestly, I do.

However, you and your friends are making it very fucking difficult for such discourse to occur.

I believe it goes without saying that Irish lamestream media, the kind you are so closely affiliated with, are of one voice when it comes to basically every significant issue facing Irish society. You’re all pro-vaccine, pro-immigration, pro-LGBTQPSRTZLDPA…., pro-diversity and so on and so on. 

And, to be honest, that’s okay. I don’t like it. I want it changed asap, but, it isn’t the end of the world.

However, what is the end of the world, literally the end of the world as we know it in my view, is that it has been made almost completely impossible to present an opposing view to any of these talking points online, the only platform those of us who do dissent have left to us. Our channels are deleted, our accounts suspended, our articles taken down. Our ability to take part in the discourse you so desperately seem to want has been taken from us.

And even when we get around these many restrictions, in comes those with power who will do their damndest to socially assassinate anyone with a wrong opinion. I mean that literally. This publication caught Ireland’s most elite student hacks red handed in their monitoring of perceived dissidents. These awful creatures of my generation gathered the data of their peers whom they suspected of cognitive dissent with the aim of social termination, and perhaps worse should the ability to do so be presented to them. 

What’s more, all evidence points towards the fact that their seniors do the same, if not worse. In an environment where you could face social and even violent repercussions for speaking out against your ideological garbage, how could you ever expect civil discourse to take place? Tell me, Mr Tubridy, how?

I wager that the civil discourse you want has largely been made impossible, and so men of my generation often resort to much cruder tactics to let their feelings be known. Such tactics as calling you a bundle of sticks while you’re wandering the clean parts of Dublin are a good example of this. Thankfully, there are no overzealous Facebook content moderators in real life. At least not yet. I know our wonderful government is working on that one.

Question: Is Harassing Regime Journalists Justified?

I hope my letter has been of use to you, Mr. Tubridy. While it has been slightly tongue-in-cheek at times, I do mean for its core messages to be serious. The questions you have posed, your ponderings regarding the men of my generation, the men of my kind, do have answers, some you perhaps would not like to hear.

Regardless, I would like to leave you with a question: are the outbursts you experienced justified? Considering all that we have gone over here, can we really condemn those that have lashed out at you? They don’t seem to have any other way of voicing their grievances, and they have been conditioned to think such actions appropriate. 

Also worth noting is that they never threw a punch, nor physically attacked you in any way, other than with words. Perhaps this is the most polite form of discourse they can muster, all things considered?

I know I personally don’t like it. This will disappoint many reading this (consumers of modern media love controversy, so me partly diffusing it here will cause annoyance!), but I do find that writing is a more fun, effective, and fulfilling way of swiping back at our modern world.

That being said, I have a platform. I also have had more opportunities than many of Ireland’s young men who are constantly shat on by the regime. The regime that pays you that tidy sum every year! My personal distaste of their actions is not really saying much. I have sinned. I cannot cast a stone.

Nevertheless, I can point out their valid grievances. To expect a generation of young men to take Ireland’s debt, our lockdowns, and our experimental treatments for the sake of others is one thing, but to abuse them all the while is another. To then expect them to treat you well after all that, Mr. Tubridy, is a bit naive on your part! Whether or not they’re right, in method, or indeed madness, is ultimately irrelevant.

I hope this letter finds you well,

Yours sincerely,

Daithí

The views of the author do not necessarily reflect the views of The Burkean. We apologize for any offense the foul language in this piece may cause